[ CAF Note: We created a mortgage bubble by fraudulent means. When the bubble burst, we solved the banks problem with fraudulent means at taxpayers expense. Now the question is if and how will we

Farmers from Miyagi prefecture raise their fists along with other farmers from across Japan during a rally against Japan participating in rule-making negotiations for the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in Tokyo October 26, 2011. REUTERS/Yuriko

By John Acher and Ole Mikkelsen * Central bank cuts main policy rate by 25 bps to 0.20 pct * Cuts CD rate by 25 bps to negative 0.20 pct * Keeps current account rate

By Soren Dreier Scientists at Cern, the Geneva-based European laboratory for particle physics, are revealing their latest findings in their search for the Higgs boson. Video the guardian (3 July 12) Continue reading the article

A social and economic system driven by network technologies that enable the sharing and exchange of all kinds of assets from spaces to skills to cars in ways and on a scale never possible before

Stand Up For Your Right To Know The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act of 2012 We All Have a Right to Know What’s in Our Food Consumers have a right to know

The home of the Large Hadron Collider is hot with excitement about what two teams of physicists will report this week By Ian Sample The teams have been searching for the Higgs boson using the

Anyone notice a pattern? By Ben Deighton A Belgian court convicted a subsidiary of commodities trader Glencore (GLEN.L) and others on Wednesday of bribing a European Union official in return for market-sensitive information. Glencore Grain

By Chuck Gibson Buried underneath last week’s news about the Supreme Court’s ruling on “Obamacare”, the House of Representatives passed a transportation bill that included an extension of the low interest rate on government-subsidized student

[CAF Note: When John Gotti, Jr. was asked by the press whether or not the Gotti crime family was trafficking in narcotics, he denied the allegation saying “who can compete with the government?” My research

[CAF Note: I’m a skeptic. Get ready for this to be seriously misused] A federal court decision on Tuesday upholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark rulings to control greenhouse gases was a decisive victory for

Image: Stuart Niles / freedigitalphotos.net * By John Butler In what might be the most underreported financial story of the year, US banking regulators recently circulated a memorandum for comment, including proposed adjustments to current

[Note from CAF: Here it comes again. A new effort to push pandemics and vaccines. If ever there is a sign of real weakness in the global economy, medical terrorism is it. For more on swine

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Source: TED In pictures, quotes and more. As the world becomes interconnected, the ways we relate and learn about one another (and the rules about what we share) are changing. That’s

[click on the image for a larger version By Steven Aftergood The Department of Defense has identified 110 sites in the United States that could serve as bases for military unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or

by Catherine Austin Fitts In April, I dropped into the Verizon Store in Corte Madera, California. I was headed to Portugal. My iPhone did not work globally. On my last few trips to Europe, Verizon

From Wikipedia The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), also known as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, is a multilateral free trade agreement that aims to further liberalize the economies of the Asia-Pacific region; specifically, Article 1.1.3

[CAF Note: Like Curtis Mayfield sang, “It’s like one way in and no way out.”] By Spatial Information Design Labs The United States currently has more than 2 million people locked up in jails and

By Adam Curtis All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace is a series about how humans have been colonised by the machines they have built — “Although we don’t realise it, the way we

Genetically modified (GM) crops are promoted on the basis of a range of far-reaching claims from the GM crop industry and its supporters. They say that GM crops: Are an extension of natural breeding and

By Charles Riley The average American family’s net worth dropped almost 40% between 2007 and 2010, according to a triennial study released Monday by the Federal Reserve. [click on the image for a larger version

By David Jolly Paris — Washington gained another victory on Thursday in its push to extend surveillance over Americans’ financial dealings when Switzerland joined the list of countries that have agreed to cooperate in an

By Charles Hugh Smith of two minds.com The Master Narrative Nobody Dares Admit All centralized systems, open and shadow alike, act as heavy taxes on the society and economy. This is why they cannot compete

By Dakin Campbell and Michael J. Moore Moody’s Investors Service suffered a downgrade of its own as markets responded to the company’s rating cuts yesterday of 15 of the world’s largest banks by bidding up

Workshop– Saturday June 23 and Sunday, June 24, 2012 Hours: Each day-10:00-4:00 Place: Lesta’s Studio, 135 Evans Ave.,San Antonio., 78209 Fee: One day $50, both days $85 plus supply fee $10 a day Lunch: Bring your

By Horace Dediu [click on the image for a larger version Continue reading the article . . .

Source: CNBC The United States is still No. 1 when it comes to the number of millionaires in a single country, but global wealth is continuing its movement eastward. Continue reading the article . .

By a Solari Report Subscriber [CAF Note: Yikes! Has this happened to you? If you are a subscriber, post your story on the blog or, if not, let us know at communicate@wordpressdevurl.com. Let us know

Source: BBC News Japan has announced that it will restart two nuclear reactors – the first to go back online since all the country’s plants were closed following last year’s Fukushima crisis. Reactors at the

Summer begins in the Northern Hemisphere on June 20, 2012, at 7:09 P.M. (EDT). Here’s more about the first day of summer—the summer solstice—plus, facts, folklore, and some sensational summer photos! Continue reading the article

By Frank Morales Back in 1992 the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff held a “Strategy Essay Competition.” The winner was a National War College student paper entitled, “The Origins of the American Military Coup of

By Osamu Tsukimori TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s lower house is set to pass a bill on Friday to provide government guarantees on insurance for Iranian crude cargoes, making it the first of Iran’s big Asian

By Chris Oliver Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing HK:388 -4.45% HKXCF +2.56% , operator of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, said Friday it has entered into a framework agreement to buy the London Metal Exchange

By Ron Bennett For all the small business owners out there struggling to make it, here is simple calculation of the hidden tax paid due to inflation: How much is the tax due to 4%

By Karen Weise It’s been just two weeks since President Obama signed the JOBS Act into law, loosening requirements for companies looking to raise capital. The rules aren’t even written yet, and already one new

By Anais Starr My great good friend and doctor healer, Dr. Jim MacKimmie passed away on Monday evening, June 11. After the initial stab of a shock, jangling of heart strings, sleeping on it overnight,

Could this be the golden age of estate planning? Some financial advisers believe it is — at least until the end of the year. That’s when key income tax breaks for transferring wealth are scheduled

BISMARCK, N.D. — Since Californians shrank their property taxes more than three decades ago by passing Proposition 13, people around the nation have echoed their dismay over such levies, putting forth plans to even them,

  Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, which counts the Chinese government among it shareholders, is understood to have tabled a £1.3bn offer for the City’s last “open cry” market, and a decision is expected to

30,000 secret surveillance orders approved each year Nate Anderson (5 June 12) If the government spies on you but brings no charges, you’ll never know. A federal judge estimates that his fellow federal judges issue

Source: Shadowstats This article replaces the earlier “Primer” on the Consumer Price Index   Consumer Price Index Has Been Reconfigured Since Early-1980s?So As to Understate Inflation versus Common Experience   CPI no longer measures the

Source: Economist Our interactive overview of government debt across the planet. The clock is ticking. Every second, it seems, someone in the world takes on more debt. The idea of a debt clock for an

By Humble Student of the Markets I wrote before that the likely negative surprise was going to come from China and not Europe (see Focus on China, not Europe). Yes, I am worried about China,

“There are three kinds of people in the world: those who are asleep, those who are stirring, and those who are awake. “If you try to wake up the sleeping person he will just mumble

By Paula Vasan,  aiCIO Alongside senators, prime ministers, and banking kingpins, one (perhaps) unusual attendee is currently at this year’s Bilderberg meetings: Texas Teacher Retirement System (TRS) CIO Britt Harris. Harris’ presence at the historically

By Lee Ferran, Alexander Marquardt and Colleen Curry Flame, also known as sKyWIper, is a veritable “toolkit” of cyber spying programs that is capable of remotely taking screenshots while the computer user works, recording audio

[Note from CAF: This post was originally published here in February of 2009. In light of recent events, I am republishing.] By Catherine Austin Fitts In the fall of 2001 I attended a private investment

The Securities and Exchange Commission today adopted a new rule to place certain restrictions on short selling when a stock is experiencing significant downward price pressure. The measure is intended to promote market stability and

Dear Mr. Blankfein: I write to request information about your firm’s market activities related to credit default swaps on municipal bonds in general, and State of California general obligation (GO) bonds specifically. The State never

View Larger Chart By Vincent Fernando, CFA and Kamelia Angelova There’s an enormous yet simple reason why America will remain an extremely powerful nation out to 2050. It’s demographics. Thanks to a relatively high fertility

As we read stories about a strong US dollar, it is good to keep a historical perspective in mind. View larger image at FXStreet.com

Here is a tool to track proposed federal food “safety” legislation. Continue reading Tracking Food Safety Proposals

By Oliver Biggadike and Inyoung Hwang The strengthening U.S. economy, subdued inflation and rising stock prices are propelling the dollar rally into its fifth month as traders seek refuge from Europe’s fiscal crisis and Japanese

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have sealed an agreement on a landmark nuclear arms reduction treaty. Obama and Medvedev plan to officially sign the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty on April 8 in

As of last week, there is now a U.S. Government national security agency called the Biometrics Identity Management Agency (BIMA).  It supersedes a Biometrics Task Force that was established in 2000. Though nominally a component

By William Selway and Martin Z. Braun JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest

View Larger Chart The fundamentals supporting the long term trend. Continue reading Gold in US Dollars Correlated to US Sovereign Debt

View Larger Chart By Joe Weisenthal and Kamelia Angelova The recent bond sell off might just be noise, but of course it’s causing people to discuss the long-term sustainability of US debt. Continue reading Is

View Larger Chart By Adam Brochert For those who already own Gold and want to buy a house in the future, here’s how to know when to start looking for a house (chart stolen from

MDC activist Sam Chakaipa returns to his village in rural Zimbabwe to find his friends and neighbours starving to death. Reduced to panning gold powder from the rivers to exchange for food at an exorbitant

By Michael Mackenzie and David Oakley The bond vigilantes are finally flexing their muscles. A long period of stability for the US government bond market showed signs of cracking this week as a lack of

Dear Mr. President-Elect, It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy

– Read the full text of the bill as signed by the President – View an index and references at Thomas.gov Related reading: Obama to Sign Executive Order on Abortion Today ABC News (24 Mar

By Laura Litvan, Nicole Gaouette and Kristin Jensen March 22 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. House passed the most sweeping health-care legislation in four decades, rewriting the rules governing medical industries and ensuring that tens of

By Jane Hamsher The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in congress since it began last year. The health care bill will come up for a vote in the House on Sunday,

View Dave Eggers’ Wish: Once Upon A School at YouTube

In his new book, In Search of Self-Governance, Scott Rasmussen observes that most Americans “have come to believe that the political system is broken, that most politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party

Wachovia bank executives have admitted that the banking giant laundered millions of dollars for Mexican drug lords between 2003 and 2008, prosecutors announced in Miami this afternoon. The bank has promised to pay $160 million

By Matthew Day The People’s Party, the largest group in a five-party coalition, walked out amid disputes over how to cope with the country’s severe problems. Unemployment has now hit 20 per cent and the

View One Million Trees For Ethiopia at YouTube

By Hugh Son A House committee requested that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke turn over documents related to Stephen Friedman’s purchase of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. shares while he was on the boards of

“Some people think the Federal Reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of

WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? is a witty and provocative documentary produced and directed by award-winning Catherine Gund about kids and food politics. Filmed over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old multi-racial

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: The formal statement GATA Chairman Bill Murphy plans to submit as a witness at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s hearing next week on position limits in the precious

By Heather Smith With just one slaughterhouse remaining within 80 miles of San Francisco, we stand to lose not only our local beef industry, but our grazing lands as well. Now a thick-skinned herd of

By Steve Gorman From French poodles to German shepherds, domestic dogs likely trace most of their ancestry to the Middle East, as opposed to East Asian origins suggested by previous research, a genetic study reported

By Dugald McConnell Idaho on Wednesday became the first state to pass a law saying no thanks to part of President Obama’s health care proposal. The Idaho Health Care Freedom Act says in part, “every

By Ben Popken View Larger Chart Continue reading Why A Salad Costs More Than A Big Mac

Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio announced on Wednesday he would switch his vote on the Democrat-led healthcare reform bill and support the legislation even though it does not create a public option. Continue reading Dennis

By Elisa Martinuzzi and Sonia Sirletti Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG and Hypo Real Estate Holding AG’s Depfa Bank Plc unit were charged with fraud linked to the sale of derivatives

Idaho lawmakers are backing a plan that would allow state tax bills to be paid down with silver medallions instead of cash. The bill approved Monday is intended to encourage the use of silver as

By Brian Stelter Researchers, political satirists and partisan mudslingers, take note: C-Span has uploaded virtually every minute of its video archives to the Internet. The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five

In the late fifth century BC, Athenian negotiators, speaking to their Spartan competitors, with whom they were soon at war, staked out their rationale for their refusal to abandon their position as Greece’s other great

Click for Larger chart Continue reading How The Fed Backed Itself Into A Corner, And Is Doomed To Pumping Cheap Money Forever Related Reading: The Myth of the Rule of Law Excerpt: In 1993, I

This document is a classified (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks. “The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to

By Vandana Shiva Since 1966 – and as a consequence of the introduction of the Green Revolution model of water-intensive, chemical farming – India has over-exploited her groundwater, creating a water famine. Intensification of drought,

Financial markets are gripped by the role derivatives have played in Greece’s debt crisis, but Italy also has a derivatives time bomb, and hundreds of cities are in the 24 billion euro blast zone. Continue

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard China has succumbed to hubris. It has mistaken the soft diplomacy of Barack Obama for weakness, mistaken the US credit crisis for decline, and mistaken its own mercantilist bubble for ascendancy. There

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): GATA Chairman Bill Murphy was formally invited Friday by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to speak at its meeting in Washington on Thursday, March 25, to

By Brady Dennis Republicans on the Senate banking committee said they remain open to finding a bipartisan agreement on legislation to overhaul financial regulation, but they warned the chairman, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), against

Imagine you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family.

For all those dismayed by scenes of looting in disaster-struck zones, whether Haiti or Chile or elsewhere, take heart: Good acts – acts of kindness, generosity and cooperation – spread just as easily as bad.